Thursday, July 8, 2010

"Good children's literature appealsnot only tothe child in the adult,but to the adult in the child."

~ Anonymous

"People die, but books never die." ~ Anonymous

"Show me the books he loves and I shall know the manfar better than through mortal friends."

~ Dawn Adams

"Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves tomankind, which are delivered down from generation togeneration as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn."

~ Joseph Addison

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Marginalia is not of mere marginal interest.

It is the scrawled, or carefully lettered, notein the margin of a book.

It is the dialogue between a thoughtful readerand this book.

No author worth their salt would object,I think,to such a duet upon the page.

We all want engagement with our ideas,our rhythm of words,our vision...

We all, of course,have been schooled to respect books,to never mark their pages,nor underline a beloved passage,indeed to handle them much at all.Better, it seems, to leave them on the shelfwhere they can remain decorativetestimonial to our erudition.

So It delighted me to learn that the most collectibleof vintage (REALLY vintage) booksare prized in partfor the marginalia of their historical ownerssome famous,but all immortal.

Some venerable volumeshave passed from learned hand to learned handdown through centuries,and embody a timeless conversation of mindand spirit.

"The body of B. Franklin, Printer (Like the Cover of an Old Book Its Contents torn Out And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding) Lies Here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be Lost; For it will (as he Believ'd) Appear once More In a New and More Elegant Edition Revised and Corrected By the Author.Benjamin and Deborah Franklin: 1790"

Benjamin Franklin's Final Epitaph

In a recent New Yorker (June 28 2010), Ian Frazierreports on an excursion to the New York Public Librarywhere he had the privilege of seeing somemarginalia in the Berg Collection of rare books:

"A few of the marginalia in the books were wordless-for example, in Jack Kerouac's copy of 'A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers ,' byHenry David Thoreau.Kerouac possessed this book but did not own it,having borrowed it from a local library in 1949and never brought it back.On page 227, this sentence-'The traveler must be born again on the road'-was underlined in pencil,with a small, neat check mark beside it."

Wow!

Kerouac's famous title, of a book that informed my life powerfully,is an homage to another of my formative writers!